Pulse of Puget Sound: starting at the bottom

I just completed the second part of a yearlong series I’m
writing about the Puget Sound ecosystem and the 21 “vital signs”
indicators chosen by the Puget Sound Partnership to measure the
health of the sound.

This second part, published in
Sunday’s Kitsap Sun, consists of stories about the food web,
including plankton and eelgrass; forage fish, including herring;
and bulkheads, which are generally considered a threat to the
nearshore ecosystem.

I was trying to cover the lower half of the food web, to build a
foundation for the other parts to come.

I talked to a lot of experts on these issues and ended up
writing one of the largest story packages I’ve ever written. Still,
I barely touched the surface of these topics. I guess I’ll have to
return later to dig a little deeper.

Scientists often say, the more they know, the more they realize
what little they know, or something like that. I’ve always tried to
help people understand the complexities of environmental science,
but there are no simple answers.

That’s why the Puget Sound Partnership is an important bridge
between policymakers and scientists. We have enough tools to know
what should be done to save Puget Sound, but how do we know what
projects should come before others? What can we afford to do? And
how do we measure success or failure? Those are the questions
challenging the partnership at the moment.

I would like to thank all the researchers willing to give their
time to this project as well as Kitsap Sun staffers who helped
crunch the numbers and produce the graphics for the story package,
as well as the editors who offered ideas along the way.